| A | B |
|---|
| Burner | a CD or DVD writer; can be internal or external |
| Compact Disk (CD) | An optical storage medium made of molded polymer for electronically recording, storing, and playing back audio, video, text, and other information in digital form. |
| CD-ROM | Compact Disk-Read Only Memory; a CD that contains data a computer can read, but to shich the computer cannot write new data. |
| Compact Disck-Recordable (CD-R) | A CD on which a computer can write data that cannot be overwirtten. |
| Compact Disk-Re-Writable (CD-RW) | A CD on which a computer can store, erase, and replace data. |
| Digital Video Disk (DVD) | a CD-like optical disk with a capacity of 4.7 gb or more that can hold a full-length commercial movie. |
| Digital Video Disk-Read Only Memory (DVD-ROM) | Contains data that a computer can read, but to which the computer cannot write new data. |
| Digital Video Disk-Recordable (DVD-R, DVD+R) | Data Written to a DVD-R+R disc that cannot be overwritten. |
| Digital Video Disk-Re-Writable (DVD-RW, DVD+RW) | Data written to a DVD-RW+RW can store, erase, and replace data. |
| Dual-layer | A two-layer DVD that can hold almost twice as much storage as a single-layer disc. |
| Flash Drive | A plug-and-play portable storage device that uses flash memory and is lightweight enought to attach to a key chain; also known as a pen drive, keychain drive, thumb drive, jump drive. |
| Flash memory | Sometimes called "flash RAM:, a type of constantly-powered nonvolatile memory that can be erased and reprogrammed. |
| gigabyte | A unit of storage measuring roughly 1,000,000,000 bytes (gb) |
| Kilobyte | A unit of storage measuring 1,000 bytes (kb) |
| magnetic storage | Storage device that encodes data as microscopic magnetized needles on the disk's surface. |
| Megabyte | A unit of storage measuring roughly 1,000,000 bytes (mb0 |
| memory card | A small removable storage device used to store data in digital input devices such as cameras and audio recorders; some versions are called "memory sticks". |
| optical storage | storage device that records data by burning microscopic holes in the surface of the disk with a laser; to read the disk, another laser beam shines on the disk and detects the holes by changes in the reflection pattern. |
| Read Speed | The speed at which data is read from a CD or DVD. |
| Rewrite speed | The speed at which data can be rewritten to a CD-RW or DVD-RW |
| Write speed | The speed at which data is written to a CD-R or DVD-R. |
